UPDATE: 18-year-old Shot and Killed by Yakima SWAT Team

By
Ian Cull.
Published Thursday, May 19th, 2011

A Selah man is shot and killed by Yakima SWAT team members after a firefight outside of his home around 10 p.m. Wednesday. Police received calls saying the man was making threats to people inside the house, and firing his weapon.

All four people escaped the house on the 3900 block of Speyers road in Selah safely.

When the SWAT team arrived, police say the 18-year-old suspect, identified by the Yakima County Coroner's office as Ross Nager, tried to leave in an SUV, nearly ramming a SWAT vehicle. When Nager stopped and tried to exit the SUV with either a shotgun or rifle, a sniper shot and killed him.

Neighbors were shocked to hear the news this morning.

Kyle Case lives across the street and said, "out here in a rural area where I've lived for almost 40 years - it's totally different, there's never been anything like this around here."

Case says a SWAR member climbed onto his RV and told him to go inside. He then heard gunshots around 11 p.m.

"I heard five rapid shots and then about a minute pause and then I heard three more and then I didn't hear anything more," he said.

Nager graduated from Selah High School in 2010 and his next door neighbor Fritzi Kensler said he wanted to become a police officer.

"He seemed like a regular teenager, he kind of missed his friends in California. Last fall he went to college in California...but came home and was going to go to YVCC and become a cop," she said.

The Washington State Patrol is investigating the shooting. Two members of the SWAT team have been put on paid leave until the investigation concludes.